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Portland Arts & Lectures: Ann Patchett

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Ann Patchett is the best-selling author of nine books, including the novels Bell Canto and State of Wonder, andthe memoir Truth and Beauty. Publisher's Weekly calls her "a master storyteller who has an entertaining habit ofdropping ordinary people into extraordinary and exotic circumstances to see what they're made of." In 2012,TIME magazine named her one of the 100 Most influential people in the world, in part for starting Parnassusbooks and "placing herself on the front lines of several ongoing battles for the fate of the printed word".Patchett's newest book, This a Story of a Happy Marriage, a collection of essays, will be published onNovember 5, 2013.

Portland Arts & Lectures

The 29th season of Portland Arts & Lectures begins on October 8, 2013 with a lecture by Salman Rushdie, the celebrated and controversial international author of eleven novels. Ann Patchett, the author most requested by the audience in a recent survey, will appear November 20, 2013. January 14, 2014 brings Pulitzer Prize-winning nonfiction author of The Looming Tower, Lawrence Wright, whose most recent book is Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood and the Prison of Belief. Graphic novelist and noted cartoonist Chris Ware will appear in conversation with renowned book designer Chip Kidd on February 18, 2014. The season rounds out with one of the most significant and critically-acclaimed Latina writers, Julia Alvarez, on April 3, 2014.

Since 1984, Portland Arts & Lectures has brought leading authors, historians, artists and critics to our community to discuss their work and the trajectory of contemporary culture, connecting readers and writers of all ages in a spirit of intellectual curiosity and engagement with events, classroom visits, and forums. Portland Arts & Lectures brings the world’s most celebrated writers, artists and thinkers to our community.